Research Collection Journal Issue Transborder Trade Author(s): Fehlings, Susanne; Bram, Chen; Khutsishvili, Ketevan Publication Date: 2017-06-25 Permanent Link: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000169522 Rights / License: In Copyright - Non-Commercial Use Permitted This page was generated automatically upon download from the ETH Zurich Research Collection. For more information please consult the Terms of use. ETH Library No. 96 25 June 2017 Abkhazia South Ossetia caucasus Adjara analytical digest Nagorno- Karabakh www.laender-analysen.de/cad www.css.ethz.ch/en/publications/cad.html TRANSBORDER TRADE Special Editors: Philippe Rudaz and Susanne Fehlings ■■The Chinese Connection—Informal Trade Relations between the Caucasus and China Since the Early 1990s 2 By Susanne Fehlings (Goethe University Frankfurt) ■■Moscow Azerbaijani-Juhuro “Oligarchs” and the Eurasian Trade Networks 5 By Chen Bram (Truman Institute, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) ■■Suddenly a Border: Hazelnut Trade across the De Facto Border between Abkhazia and the Zugdidi Municipal Region of Georgia 9 By Ketevan Khutsishvili (Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University) Research Centre Center Caucasus Research German Association for for East European Studies for Security Studies Resource Centers East European Studies University of Bremen ETH Zurich CAUCASUS ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 96, 25 June 2017 2 The Chinese Connection—Informal Trade Relations between the Caucasus and China Since the Early 1990s By Susanne Fehlings (Goethe University Frankfurt) Abstract This article surveys informal trade between the Caucasus and China since the early 1990s. Starting with the initial commercial activities of singular entrepreneurs from the Caucasus—here taken to refer to Arme- nia and Georgia—who began travelling to China for purposes of trade immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I move to current business relations between Caucasian businessmen and women and their Chinese partners and to the growing influence of Chinese entrepreneurs who come to the Caucasus for trade. Introduction ing large-scale companies, and individual entrepreneurs This article offers a survey of informal transnational and local traders, similarly adapt to local business envi- trade between the Caucasus—specifically Armenia and ronments and political frameworks. Both engage in, and Georgia—and China. Beginning with the initial wave negotiate with, formal and informal practices and tech- of trade by singular individuals, who started travelling niques ascribed to globalization from above and to global- to China in the early 1990s, I move on to describe the ization from below. They do so in a multitude of ways, as proliferation of marketplaces (often described as bazaars) I seek to describe here. In this context, I approach infor- from this time, the emergence of a new generation of mality not as criminal but as an activity, which is not traders, their links to China, and finally the growing explicitly regulated by official law and state institutions.3 influence of Chinese traders and investors in Georgia. Most of the data used in this article were collected The “Chelnoki” of the 1990s during three and a half months of fieldwork in Tbilisi in The dissolution of the Soviet Union was followed by 2014 and 2016. I relied on open-ended interviews, partic- a long and difficult period of economic transition that ipant observation, and on a structured survey of approx- is frequently described by locals as “wild capitalism”. My imately 200 traders in Lilo Bazaar, the biggest whole- interlocutors recall “wild capitalism” as chaotic and vio- sale and retail marketplace in the Caucasus. My research lent: everyone struggled and only the fittest—or the most is part of the current Volkswagen Foundation-funded brutal—managed to survive. It was during this time that project “Informal Markets and Trade in Central Asia many citizens, who could now travel abroad, started and the Caucasus”, which aims to build a deeper under- to work as petty traders, locally known as “chelnoki”. standing of informal economic activities in the region. The term “chelnoki” derives from the Russian term The project seeks to add new empirical evidence from the for “shuttle” (chelnok), which is a device used in weav- Caucasus and Central Asia within the conceptual frame- ing to carry the weft by moving back and forth. This work of “globalization from below”1. In particular, we pay motion describes the petty traders’ travel activity. To attention to the relationship between state institutions, my knowledge, there is only limited literature about the economic activities, and socio-cultural value systems.2 “chelnoki” phenomenon.4 One reason might be, as I was The changing transnational economic practices I describe told, that “people do not want to talk about it because […] in this article may be approached as the initial results in the experience was too painful for them”. this framework. They speak about shifting moral atti- This pain manifests at three levels. First, the 1990s tudes and values in Armenian and Georgian society, and in general are remembered as “dark years” of suffering, offer insight into the changing relationships of people, where there was a shortage of food, heating, and elec- traders, and businessmen with state-governments and tricity. Many people lost their jobs and were forced to state officials. I illustrate how states and globally operat- trade to feed their families. 3 Hart, K. (1973). Informal Income Opportunities and Urban 1 Portes, A. (1997). Globalization from Below: The Rise of Trans- Employment in Ghana. Journal of Modern African Studies 11(1): national Communities. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 61–89. Mathews, G., Ribeiro, G. L. & Vega, C. A. (2012). Globaliza- 4 Holzlehner, T. (2014). Shadow Networks: Border Economics, Infor- tion from Below: The World’s Other Economy. London & New mal Markets and Organized Crime in the Russian Far East. Münster York: Routledge. & Zürich: LIT Verlag; Cieślewska, A. 2013. From Shuttle Trader 2 Fehlings, S., & Karrar, H. (2016). Informal Markets and Trade in to Businesswomen: The Informal Bazaar Economy in Kyrgyzstan. the Caucasus and Central Asia: A Preliminary Framework for Field In J. Morris & A. Polese (Eds.), The Informal Post-Socialist Economy: Research. Working Paper Series on Informal Markets and Trade, 1. Embedded Practices and Livelihoods. London & New York: Routledge. CAUCASUS ANALYTICAL DIGEST No. 96, 25 June 2017 3 The second manifestation of pain is psychological. little in common with the chelnoki of the 1990s. They In Soviet times, trade was perceived as “speculation” describe themselves as professional traders (businessmen (spekulatsia), which was condemned (and forbidden) as and women) and are proud of their jobs and their eco- an immoral activity. Even though one could trade small nomic success. Their business is much more organized quantities of local produce—agricultural products for and the risk has reduced to almost mere economic factors. example—and even though there were various informal Their travel has become more comfortable. Trade links to economic exchanges in the sphere of a hidden, so-called China have developed into long-term relations with Chi- “second” or “shadow” economy, most people shied from nese cooperation-partners who speak Russian. Informa- overt engagement in commerce. In the 1990s, having no tion is abundant: there is little concern about where to go, choice but to engage in trade, citizens had to abandon where to sleep, and who to trust. For example, Dato, who such values which they had grown up with. In the old owns three shops in Lilo, told us that his wife receives system, their self-esteem was based on their identity as a call from Guangzhou as soon as there are sales opportu- “good workers” (schoolteachers, engineers or industrial nities. She then travels to China, where her Chinese part- workers). Now, they felt a decline in status and had to ner receives her and accompanies her for about ten days. cope with deep ruptures that came from their having to Another Georgian businessman, Zviadi, who goes to China question long-held beliefs.5 For many, this was traumatic. once every three months to buy shoes and who we joined The third manifestation of pain is the activity itself. on his business tour, works closely with one particular Chi- Uncertain conditions and a deficit of knowledge made nese wholesaler and factory. He orders the latest designs. trade a risky activity. Chelnoki travelled to distant des- The shoes are produced according to his specifications. tinations. This was terra incognita. They did not know The shipment arrives in the port of Poti, where it is trans- the rules of the game, and they did not know the foreign ported to Lilo. Cargo and clearance have become routine. customs and language. Their travels were exhausting and Chinese produce, in Armenia as well as in Georgia, the conditions hard. Racketeering was commonplace. sometimes has a poor reputation. However, our inter- Women were particularly vulnerable. Many considered locutors make good profit. They sell the merchandise in trade a threat to their reputation; sexual assault and har- their own shops in Lilo, or to retailers in the marketplace. assment were a constant concern. From Lilo, goods make their way to shops and boutiques in Tbilisi or Yerevan, and then across the Caucasus. Caucasian Business and China In the 1990s, a large number of chelnoki travelled to Chinese Businessmen in Georgia— China. The father of my Armenian colleague Shushan Encounters on the Ground sold the family’s jewellery to go to Suifenhezhen. He took Lasha, the son of a Lilo trader, states that “the Chinese an airplane to Vladivostok and travelled to the Chinese produce everything”. At the 2016 Georgia–China (Jiangxi) border (Pogranitschny) by train. On the way back home, Featured Commodities Exhibition, which was hosted by he took a bus to the border, then to Khabarovsk. There, the Georgian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, I grew he took a cargo airplane to Kuybyshev, where he waited convinced that this was true.